“What do you say to you, me, a bottle of champagne, and a good view? It’s a nice night.”

My chest feels heavy. I don’t want to hurt him. He deserves the truth about who I am and how I feel—not more lies. But I’m not brave enough to come clean right now. “I’d love that,” I say.

He grins and pulls me close again. “And I love you.”

• Chapter 14 •

I’m curled up on Helen’s old leather armchair in the back room of the shop, hunched over my laptop, a stack of printed and highlighted bank statements, and a yellow legal pad scratched up with optimistic math. What’s left of my coffee has gone cold. I have the same looming sense of dread I had while studying at the library in college, staring at numbers that start to swim as my mind turns to mush. But back then, if I made a miscalculation or failed to grasp a concept, the biggest consequence was a bad grade on a midterm or a final. Now the stakes are higher: I could come up short on rent. I could lose the shop. I could sink the business.

I know exactly which calculations to run by now, after having done them for so many months. All afternoon, I’ve pored over our sales, overhead costs, total income, taxes, rent, utilities, and salaries, double- and triple-checking to see how those figures might stretch and warp depending on what the future holds. Even if we take creative steps, like trimming our salaries and slightly boosting our prices, I don’t see a safe way for us to re-sign the lease at the higher rent. There just isn’t enough money.

I slump over the desk and let my forehead bang against the keys of my laptop. I can’t fathom running out of money. I’d have to, what, work for someone else again? Relocate to a less charming neighborhood? Of course, I could. But I’ve never been in this position before, and I don’t like it. Growing up, my family veered from comfortable (when we launched Mom and Dad’s business) to very comfortable (when the business was doing well). The only financial hiccup I can ever recall is one year when we were little, when they debated if they could afford sending both me and Sophie to summer camp. By the time we were old enough to start thinking about college, money wasn’t an issue. We knew we could go to the University of Maine and be fine or go to a private school out of state and also be pretty much fine. I chose to study business because I liked understanding the strategies behind running a successful company. It didn’t occur to me until halfway through my first semester of school that running your own business could totally bankrupt you.